GRAPH EXPO Confounds The Critics

CHICAGO—What were the odds that GRAPH EXPO 98 would be a Show of Shows—when the international spectacles that are IPEX and PRINT 97 captured the printing industry’s collective practically within the same 12 month span, with IPEX in September and PRINT 97 the previous September?

How about $108 million to one?

If you’re talking GRAPH EXPO and CONVERTING EXPO, that’s not bad—that’s the figure Heidelberg registered during GRAPH EXPO’s four-day stay at McCormick Place here. Heidelberg’s sales success was not singular.

Scores of the show’s more than 550 exhibitors reported GRAPH EXPO was a money maker.

MAN Roland, for example, reported a total dollar volume of orders in the $70 million range. For Komori America, the show was a blowout—its best show ever in North or South America, Komori officials say.

WAM!NET officials termed the show “spectacular.” Kodak Polychrome Graphics executives reported “incredible” traffic throughout the show and Sony Electronics representatives spoke of a “tremendous response” by show-goers. Muller Martini exceeded its sales expectations by 50 percent the first day of the show.

Here are some highlights of what the 44,000 attendees saw:

PrimeSource’s booth was sporting an elaborate booth designed to look like a construction site, all surrounding an array of prepress and printing devices, including a Xeikon variable-data printing demonstration.

Prograph—entering into a strategic business alliance with Programmed Solutions—launched nine new products, unbundling a number of production planning tools. Programmed Solutions will market and sell Prograph Production Systems’ products, known by the brand name Elysium Systems, focusing on general commercial printers with sales of less than $30 million.

WAM!NET backed up the impressive WAM!VAN—a purple semi that rivals the Titanic in grandeur—decked out with millions of dollars worth of digital prepress goodies, all under a big purple roof.

The technology ‘pods’ at one of five Scitex locations at the show represented each specific area of prepress, from scanning to digital color proofing. Scitex also had a strong presence at booths featuring technologies including the Karat digital press and the British Telecom venture, Vio.